I grew up idolizing my brother. Then he killed a man.
The Day My Brother Took a Life and Changed Mine Forever
The Day My Brother Took a Life and Changed Mine Forever

Issac Bailey | The Marshall Project | June 2016 | 22 minutes (5,496 words)

Drive the backroads of South Carolina to the small town of Ridgeville, and you’ll be greeted by a large, handmade sign reading “Your sins killed Jesus” amid the pine forests and small barns. I grew up traveling those roads but only recently noticed the sign, long after I had stopped caring about sin and consequence or what either of those things means.
Because on April 27, 1982, while I was asleep in a room with a couple of wooden bunk beds, blankets on the floor, and too many brothers, Herbert “Moochie” Bailey Jr. was killing a man named James Bunch a few miles away. Moochie was 22 years old at the time. I was only 9.
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